Download or read book The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived written by Ralph Watson McElvenny and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2023-10-24 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enduring story of Thomas Watson Jr.—a figure more important to the creation of the modern world than Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Morgan Nearly fifty years into IBM’s existence, Thomas Watson Jr. undertook the biggest gamble in business history when he “bet the farm” on the creation of the IBM System/360, the world’s first fully integrated and compatible mainframe computer. As CEO, Watson drove a revolution no other company—then or now—would dare, laying the foundation for the digital age that has transformed every society, corporation, and government. The story of Watson being “present at the creation” of the digital age is intertwined with near-Shakespearean personal drama. While he put IBM and its employees at risk, Watson also carried out a family-shattering battle over the future of the company with his brother Dick. This titanic struggle between brothers led to Dick’s death and almost killed Watson Jr. himself. Though he was eventually touted by Fortune magazine as “the greatest capitalist who ever lived,” Watson’s directionless, playboy early years made him an unlikely candidate for corporate titan. How he pulled his life together and, despite personal demons, paved the way for what became a global industry is an epic tale full of drama, inspiration, and valuable lessons in leadership, risk-taking, and social responsibility.

Download or read book Summary of Ralph Watson McElvenny s The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived written by Milkyway Media and published by Milkyway Media. This book was released on 2024-01-28 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get the Summary of Ralph Watson McElvenny's The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The Greatest Capitalist Who Ever Lived" by Ralph Watson McElvenny chronicles the life and career of Thomas John Watson Jr., who inherited the mantle of IBM from his father, Thomas Watson Sr. Watson Sr. rose from poverty and overcame early career setbacks to instill a culture of salesmanship, personal achievement, and employee welfare at IBM. Watson Jr., despite a privileged yet troubled upbringing and a strained relationship with his father, eventually embraced his role at IBM, bringing newfound confidence and leadership skills honed during his military service in WWII...

Download or read book Father Son Co written by Thomas J. Watson and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2013-08-07 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eloquent first-person account of a family drama that changed the face of American business, the man who transformed IBM into the world's largest computer company reflects on his lifelong partnership with his father--and how their management style and shared dedication to excellence united to create a unique corporate culture that became the blueprint for the entire technology boom. In the course of sixty years Thomas J. Watson Sr. and his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., together built the international colossus that is IBM. This is their story: a riveting and revealing account of two men who loved each other--and fought each other--with a terrible fierceness. But along with the story of a father and son, this is IBM's story too. It chronicles the management insights that shaped its course and its unique corporate culture, the style that made Thomas Watson Sr. one of America's most charismatic bosses, and the daring decisions by Thomas Watson Jr. that transformed IBM into the world's largest computing company. One of the greatest business-success stories of all time, Father, Son & Co. is a moving lesson for fathers who dream for their children, as well as a testament to American ingenuity and values, told in a disarmingly frank and eloquent voice. Promising to remain an important business reference as we move into the next century, FATHER, SON & CO. takes a look at the management insight that helped to shape IBM's course and unique corporate culture. It looks at Watson, Sr., one of America's most charismatic bosses, and Watson, Jr., who spurred IBM into the computer age. Ten years after its original publication, FATHER, SON & CO. remains a uniquely honest book. Watson's willingness to write about the loving but ferociously combative relationship he had with his father and the turbulent battles behind some of IBM's most far-reaching decisions gives readers rare insights into the realities of leadership. -->

Download or read book The Maverick and His Machine written by Kevin Maney and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2004-08-03 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first complete look at one of America's legendary business leaders This groundbreaking biography by Kevin Maney, acclaimed technology columnist for USA Today, offers fresh insight and new information on one of the twentieth century's greatest business figures. Over the course of forty-two years, Thomas J. Watson took a failing business called The Computer-Tabulating-Recording Company and transformed it into IBM, the world's first and most famous high-tech company. The Maverick and His Machine is the first modern biography of this business titan. Maney secured exclusive access to hundreds of boxes of Watson's long-forgotten papers, and he has produced the only complete picture of Watson the man and Watson the legendary business leader. These uncovered documents reveal new information about how Watson bet the company in the 1920s on tabulating machines-the forerunners to computers-and how he daringly beat the Great Depression of the 1930s. The documents also lead to new insights concerning the controversy that has followed Watson: his suppos ed coll usion with Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Maney paints a vivid portrait of Watson, uncovers his motivations, and offers needed context on his mammoth role in the course of modern business history. Jim Collins, author of the bestsellers Good to Great and Built to Last, writes in the Foreword to Maney's book: "Leaders like Watson are like forces of nature-almost terrifying in their release of energy and unpredictable volatility, but underneath they still adhere to certain patterns and principles. The patterns and principles might be hard to see amidst the melee, but they are there nonetheless. It takes a gifted person of insight to highlight those patterns, and that is exactly what Kevin Maney does in this book." The Maverick and His Machine also includes never-before-published photos of Watson from IBM's archives, showing Watson in greater detail than any book ever has before. Essential reading for every businessperson, tech junkie, and IBM follower, the book is also full of the kind of personal detail and reconstructed events that make it a page-turning story for general readers. The Maverick and the Machine is poised to be one of the most important business biographies in years. Kevin Maney is a nationally syndicated, award-winning technology columnist at USA Today, where he has been since 1985. He is a cover story writer whose story about IBM's bet-the-company move gained him national recognition. He was voted best technology columnist by the business journalism publication TJFR. Marketing Computers magazine has four times named him one of the most influential technology columnists. He is the author of Wiley's MEGAMEDIA SHAKEOUT: The Inside Story of the Leaders and the Losers in the Exploding Communications Industry, which was a Business Week Bestseller. Residence: Clifton, VA . "Watson was clearly a genius with a thousand helpers, yet he managed to build an institution that could transcend the genius."-from the Foreword by Jim Collins "Like all great biographers, Kevin Maney gives us an engaging story . . .his fascinating and definitive book about IBM's founder is replete with amazing revelations and character lessons that resonate today."-Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School, bestselling author of Evolve! and When Giants Learn to Dance

Download or read book The Millionaires Unit written by Marc Wortman and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1916, just thirteen years after the Wright brothers’ first flight, a group of twenty-eight college students, nearly all of them from Yale, decided to try the new sport of motorized flight and formed a campus flying club. The boys had more than fun in mind. Believing that America would soon enter the war raging in Europe, they wanted to help their woefully unprepared nation (which at the time had an air force smaller than Bulgaria’s) ready itself for what was sure to be a hard fight. Most were just teenagers, but they were also the sons of America’s early 20th century aristocracy - one a Rockefeller, one whose father headed the Union Pacific railroad empire, others who traced their roots to the Mayflower, several who counted friends and relatives among Presidents and statesmen - and all fabulously wealthy. These sons of the elite were schooled in heroism even before their nation called upon them. America was going to go to war: they would lead the way; they knew that it could cost many lives; and that just made it all the more right that they be the first to fly into battle. This is their story. 'Vivid descriptions of aerial combat ...but the true pleasure of this book is in his portraits of the six principal players and his elucidation of their deep-rooted sense of patriotic duty and camaraderie' Daily Telegraph

Download or read book The Sages written by Charles R. Morris and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the violent financial disruptions of the past several years, three men have stood out as beacons of judgment and wisdom: Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Paul Volcker. Though their experiences and styles vary -- Buffett is the canny stock market investor; Soros is the reader of shifting global tides in trade and currencies; and Volcker is the regulator and governor, sheriff and clean-up crew -- they have very much in common. All three men have more than fifty years of deep involvement in markets. All are skeptical of Wall Street frenzies. They believe that markets tend to be right, but usually only over the medium term. They have seen too many cycles of herd-driven, emotion-riding booms and busts to make their views hostage to the sweeping and simplistic assumptions of "efficient-markets" models. With the benefit of his own deep understanding of markets and finance, Morris brilliantly analyzes the records of these men, distilling their wisdom and experience -- and argues for the importance of consistent values in navigating the treacherous terrain of today's globalized world.

Download or read book 1941 Fighting the Shadow War written by Marc Wortman and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2016-04-19 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A wide-ranging examination of America’s entry into World War II.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review In 1941: Fighting the Shadow War, A Divided America in a World at War, historian Marc Wortman thrillingly explores the little-known history of America’s clandestine involvement in World War II before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to that infamous day, America had long been involved in a shadow war. Winston Churchill, England’s beleaguered new prime minister, pleaded with Franklin D. Roosevelt for help. FDR concocted ingenious ways to come to his aid, without breaking the Neutrality Acts. Launching Lend-Lease, conducting espionage at home and in South America to root out Nazi sympathizers, and waging undeclared war in the Atlantic, were just some of the tactics with which FDR battled Hitler in the shadows. FDR also had to contend with growing isolationism and anti-Semitism as he tried to influence public opinion. While Americans were sympathetic to those being crushed under Axis power, they were unwilling to enter a foreign war. Wortman tells the story through the eyes of the powerful as well as ordinary citizens. Their stories weave throughout the intricate tapestry of events that unfold during the crucial year of 1941. Combining military and political history, Wortman’s “brisk narrative takes us across nations and oceans with a propulsive vigor that speeds the book along like a good thriller” (The Wall Street Journal). “A fascinating narrative of a domestic conflict presaging America’s plunge into global war.” —Booklist, starred review

Download or read book The Richest Man Who Ever Lived written by Greg Steinmetz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A colorful introduction to one of the most influential businessmen in history” (The New York Times Book Review), Jacob Fugger—the Renaissance banker “who wrote the playbook for everyone who keeps score with money” (Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage). In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the richest man in history. Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the sixteenth century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly two percent of European GDP. In an era when kings had unlimited power, Fugger dared to stare down heads of state and ask them to pay back their loans—with interest. It was this coolness and self-assurance, along with his inexhaustible ambition, that made him not only the richest man ever, but a force of history as well. Before Fugger came along it was illegal under church law to charge interest on loans, but he got the Pope to change that. He also helped trigger the Reformation and likely funded Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. His creation of a news service gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers and earned Fugger a footnote in the history of journalism. And he took Austria’s Habsburg family from being second-tier sovereigns to rulers of the first empire where the sun never set. “Enjoyable…readable and fast-paced” (The Wall Street Journal), The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is more than a tale about the most influential businessman of all time. It is a story about palace intrigue, knights in battle, family tragedy and triumph, and a violent clash between the one percent and everybody else. “The tale of Fugger’s aspiration, ruthlessness, and greed is riveting” (The Economist).

Download or read book IBM written by James W. Cortada and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. For decades, IBM shaped the way the world did business. IBM products were in every large organization, and IBM corporate culture established a management style that was imitated by companies around the globe. It was “Big Blue, ” an icon. And yet over the years, IBM has gone through both failure and success, surviving flatlining revenue and forced reinvention. The company almost went out of business in the early 1990s, then came back strong with new business strategies and an emphasis on artificial intelligence. In this authoritative, monumental history, James Cortada tells the story of one of the most influential American companies of the last century. Cortada, a historian who worked at IBM for many years, describes IBM's technology breakthroughs, including the development of the punch card (used for automatic tabulation in the 1890 census), the calculation and printing of the first Social Security checks in the 1930s, the introduction of the PC to a mass audience in the 1980s, and the company's shift in focus from hardware to software. He discusses IBM's business culture and its orientation toward employees and customers; its global expansion; regulatory and legal issues, including antitrust litigation; and the track records of its CEOs. The secret to IBM's unequalled longevity in the information technology market, Cortada shows, is its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and technologies.

Download or read book The Match King written by Frank Partnoy and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the roaring '20s, Swedish 'migr' Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged. Driven by success to adopt ever-more perilous practices, Kreuger had turned to shell companies in tax havens, fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products -- many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today's markets. When his Wall Street empire collapsed, millions went bankrupt. Frank Partnoy, a frequent commentator on financial disaster for the Financial Times, New York Times, NPR, and CBS's "60 Minutes," recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten genius in ways that force us to re-think our ideas about the wisdom of crowds, the invisible hand, and the free and unfettered market.

Download or read book Mastering XPages written by Thomas G. Donlan and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2008-05-08 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Thomas Donlan’s defense of free market capitalism is especially timely today given all the pressures to regulate and stifle it. The anti-globalization movement wants more trade protectionism and less immigration. The global credit crisis is putting pressure on governments to bail out irresponsible lenders and borrowers at taxpayers’ expense. Instead, Donlan convincingly and clearly explains why we would all prosper more by doing all we can to make markets freer.” —Ed Yardeni, President, Yardeni Research, Inc. “Thomas Donlan reminds us all that capitalism is not simply one choice among different and equally valid economic systems, but instead that hard work and the accumulation of wealth is the natural tendency of successful people and healthy societies around the world.” —Christopher Whalen, Managing Director, Institutional Risk Analytics “It has been several decades since Joseph Schumpeter observed that the philosophical defense of a free-market economy must never cease. Thomas Donlan has taken up that challenge, but this clear-eyed book is much more than a defense. It is a magnificently constructed explanation of how the world works and why free-market capitalism continues to offer the greatest hope for solving our greatest challenges.” —Carl J. Schramm, Ph.D., President, Kauffman Foundation “The author brings to the table a healthy skepticism of the conventional wisdom, an admirable ability to separate fact from fancy, and an undisguised repugnance for the mumbo-jumbo that’s the curse of so much commentary on anything to do with economics or investment. A World of Wealth is not only a lively read, but an exceptionally enlightening and rewarding one to boot.” —Alan Abelson, Barron’s Columnist “With the facts of a primer laid out in the fast-paced narrative of a storyteller, Thomas Donlan’s A World of Wealth lucidly explains today’s marketplace. From the credit crisis to immigration and from oil prices to global warming, the book guides the reader through the economic issues of our day—jargon-free. It’s a fast, fun read that illuminates while it entertains.” —Thomas W. Hazlett, Professor of Law & Economics, George Mason University “An indispensable—and highly readable—primer on how the economic world really works, whether politicians of both left and right want it to work that way or not. If it were required reading for all political reporters, they might do a lot more reporting and carry a lot less water in the process.” —John Steele Gordon, Author of Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power Acknowledgments xii About the Author xiii Introduction xv Chapter 1: The Capitalist Answer to the “Energy Crisis”: Pay Higher Prices 1 Chapter 2: The Capitalist Approach to Environmental Pollution and Global Warming: Breathe Easy 23 Chapter 3: A Capitalist Prescription for Trade: Free Exchange Enriches Both Sides of Every Deal 43 Chapter 4: Capitalist Immigration Policy: Tear Down the Walls 65 Chapter 5: The Essential Elements of Capitalism: Investment and Invention 81 Chapter 6: The Capitalist Take on Taxes: Keep Taxes Low and Equal 93 Chapter 7: The Capitalist Struggle against Low Finance: Price Controls and Regulation Endanger the Free Market 113 Chapter 8: A Capitalist Diagnosis for the High Cost of Health Care: Pay What It’s Worth 131 Chapter 9: The Capitalist Approach to Retirement Security: It’s an Individual's Duty First 149 Chapter 10: A Capitalist Look at the Current Economy 169 Chapter 11: The Capitalist Quest for Productivity 185 Reading Further 201 Index 205

Download or read book GoPro Inventor Nick Woodman written by Matt Doeden and published by Lerner Publications. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you enjoy snapping photos or taking movies of your adventures? So does Nick Woodman—but when he was growing up, most of his activities weren't camera-safe. Woodman was a diehard surfer. He couldn't hold a camera—or keep it dry—while he was boarding. So many of his memorable moments went unrecorded. As an adult, Woodman set out to invent a camera that's easy to use anywhere. The result was GoPro—a company that builds sturdy, waterproof, wearable cameras. GoPro cameras have been used everywhere from the ocean floor to outer space. They've captured athletic thrills, exotic journeys, and everyday moments on the go. Discover how Woodman turned his tech vision into reality.

Download or read book Who Says Elephants Can t Dance written by Louis V. Gerstner and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement, bringing IBM back from the brink of insolvency to lead the computer business once again.Offering a unique case study drawn from decades of experience at some of America's top companies -- McKinsey, American Express, RJR Nabisco -- Gerstner's insights into management and leadership are applicable to any business, at any level. Ranging from strategy to public relations, from finance to organization, Gerstner reveals the lessons of a lifetime running highly successful companies.

Download or read book The Capitalist Manifesto written by Andrew Bernstein and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Capitalist Manifesto defends capitalism as the world's most moral and practical social system. This book is written for the rational mind, whether the reader is a professional intellectual or an intelligent layman. It makes the case for individual rights and freedom in terms intelligible to all rational men.

Download or read book Prophet of Innovation written by Thomas K. McCraw and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-30 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pan Am, Gimbel’s, Pullman, Douglas Aircraft, Digital Equipment Corporation, British Leyland—all once as strong as dinosaurs, all now just as extinct. Destruction of businesses, fortunes, products, and careers is the price of progress toward a better material life. No one understood this bedrock economic principle better than Joseph A. Schumpeter. “Creative destruction,” he said, is the driving force of capitalism. Described by John Kenneth Galbraith as “the most sophisticated conservative” of the twentieth century, Schumpeter made his mark as the prophet of incessant change. His vision was stark: Nearly all businesses fail, victims of innovation by their competitors. Businesspeople ignore this lesson at their peril—to survive, they must be entrepreneurial and think strategically. Yet in Schumpeter’s view, the general prosperity produced by the “capitalist engine” far outweighs the wreckage it leaves behind. During a tumultuous life spanning two world wars, the Great Depression, and the early Cold War, Schumpeter reinvented himself many times. From boy wonder in turn-of-the-century Vienna to captivating Harvard professor, he was stalked by tragedy and haunted by the specter of his rival, John Maynard Keynes. By 1983—the centennial of the birth of both men—Forbes christened Schumpeter, not Keynes, the best navigator through the turbulent seas of globalization. Time has proved that assessment accurate. Prophet of Innovation is also the private story of a man rescued repeatedly by women who loved him and put his well-being above their own. Without them, he would likely have perished, so fierce were the conflicts between his reason and his emotions. Drawing on all of Schumpeter’s writings, including many intimate diaries and letters never before used, this biography paints the full portrait of a magnetic figure who aspired to become the world’s greatest economist, lover, and horseman—and admitted to failure only with the horses.

Download or read book Watson written by James Grippando and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the life of IBM founder Thomas J. Watson Sr., Watson is a dramatic play in which the true story of Nazi exploitation of IBM technology unfolds, shedding light on the world's first personal information catastrophe: the systematic identification of Jews for extermination. In 1937, Watson became the first American to receive the Merit Cross, one of the highest honors Adolph Hitler ever bestowed on a non-German. Not until June 1940, and only after intense pressure from friends and Jewish leaders, did Watson return the medal. But why? Business reasons? Social pressures? Or was it genuinely an act of courage and conscience? Watson is the first-ever dramatization of this historic collision between morality and capitalism, brought to life through Watson's explosive relationship with his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., who followed in his father's footsteps to become, in the words of Fortune magazine, "the greatest capitalist who ever lived." Meticulously researched and expertly spun, Watson unveils the darkest secrets of the dawn of Big Data.

Download or read book Creating a World Without Poverty written by Muhammad Yunus and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author describes his vision for an innovative business model that would combine the power of free markets with a quest for a more humane, egalitarian world that could help alleviate world poverty, inequality, and other social problems.